Mountain Island Charter School officials hope they’ve seen their last setback trying to find a permanent place to build a charter school.

School officials planned to build the school on 40 acres on Horseshoe Bend Beach Road north of Mount Holly on land owned by entities affiliated with Andreas Bechtler, the family known for creating the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in downtown Charlotte.

Mountain Island Charter School needed to have direct access to a major road to fall in line with Gaston County zoning requirements. In June, the Gaston County Board of Adjustment turned down Mountain Island Charter School’s request to allow an exception to that zoning rule. Head of School Linda Bratcher said school officials hoped that the community surrounding the proposed site would view the school as an asset and embrace it.

“To our dismay, that was not the case,” Bratcher said.

Seven people spoke against allowing the school to move forward at the board of adjustment meeting. Three people spoke in favor of the school. Stonewater Bay residents also spoke out in opposition when the school sought to be annexed into Mount Holly city limits. Mount Holly City Council said no to the annexation.

When the zoning approval fell through, school officials could have appealed the decision and tried again. Bratcher said the school is growing so rapidly that delaying wouldn’t be in the school’s best interest.

Of the 817 students enrolled in the school, 76 percent come from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area, 21 percent come from Gaston County and 3 percent come from Lincoln County. The school also has students from Cabarrus County, Catawba County and the Iredell-Statesville area.

The school had already pushed back the date of its move by a year.

“The clock is ticking for us to move to our own site and alleviate our good friends here at New Covenant (United Methodist Church),” Bratcher said. “We needed to move on.”

School officials found a nearly 45-acre parcel of land owned by Crescent Resources along Lucia Riverbend Highway near N.C. 273 and N.C. 16. The site wasn’t on the market initially, but its owners would sell the property for a good use, Bratcher said.

School officials are in talks with Crescent Resources to purchase the land if it can get the required permits and check out the site to make sure it could work as a school campus.

Mountain Island Charter has a hearing with the Gaston County Board of Adjustment to again ask for leniency on zoning laws. If the school receives approval, it can move forward, Bratcher said.

The school received approval from Mount Holly City Council to extend water and sewer lines to the Lucia Riverbend site at the school’s expense. Mountain Island Charter will pay out-of-town rates for water and sewer service.

Page 2 of 2 - “I think the site is comparable and allows for our plans not to have to be trashed and start all over again,” Bratcher said. “We’re currently working to see what we need to do to make changes to original drawings.”

School officials hope to be in modular buildings on the new site in August 2013. The new site on Lucia Riverbend Highway is near the school’s current site on the New Covenant United Methodist Church campus. Bratcher is hopeful the school is on a path forward with its new plans and new place.